Even a Lifetime Isn't Enough
by Star Spangled Lady
Summary: When a Tesseract signal is discovered by the Avengers and SHIELD in the Arctic, it pulls the team back in time and forces them to confront things that they had long thought were in the past, and look towards a future that they may not want to go back to. Tony is forced to confront his biggest regrets, and Steve is forced to confront his status as a man out of time. NOT SLASH.
1. Out of the Ice and Into the Fire

**NOTES:**

This is my first fanfiction in years, and my first in the MCU, so please be kind. It is also unbeta'd. I hope to update once a week at least.

I always feel like fics tend to oversimplify Tony's relationship with Howard as abusive or violent, which never made sense to me given what we see of his relationship with Steve in Captain America. I also wanted to do a bit of a different take on Edwin Jarvis. The result is this fic.

I am a big fan of the comics, however this story will very strictly take place in the MCU only to simplify things. I've left it open ended so that it could take place either before or after IM3, depending on your imagination. In other words, only very vague spoilers.

I've moved towards favouring AO3, but decided to post this here to share with the community as well. Enjoy!

ARCTIC CIRCLE - AUGUST 12, 2014 11:45AM

Clint could feel it. He knew that if he were to tell his SHIELD-mandated psychiatrist that little fact once he was safely back home, bombarded by the strangely comforting buzzing fluorescent lights of the Triskelion, that the psychiatrist would tell him he was imagining things. That the events surrounding Loki's invasion of New York City were two years ago, and that there were galaxies between him and the source of his anxiety. But now, out in the blinding white brightness of the long Arctic daylight, he knew he could feel it, the closer he got to it. The subtle magical pull of the Tesseract.

TRISKELION, NYC - AUGUST 12, 2014 6:30AM

It had all gone downhill from the moment he had woken up that morning. From the moment he'd woken up to the sound of his cell phone colliding violently with his stainless steel nightstand. Natasha was calling.

"Hmmph" he said, rolling over and retrieving his cell phone as it clattered to the floor. If she wanted intelligent conversation and sentences with multiple words in them, she shouldn't have woken him up at 6:30 in the morning.

"I hate to interrupt your beauty rest, but we're assembling at the Tower. Something's happened and we need you" she said. The woman didn't do small talk. Which relieved Clint, because when she did it was never really as small as it seemed.

"Whah?" replied Clint, still half asleep, pulling his pants on.

"I'll give you more details when you get here. Just get here."

Again, the woman was nothing if not succinct. The conversation over, Clint dressed and moved to exit, nearly dropping the cell phone when it began to buzz again. "Yep?" he asked.

"Barton," came the unmistakeably firm tone of Director Fury on the other end, "we need you immediately. Get your ass down here." And the line went dead. Fury was the only person Clint knew who could match Natasha for least information provided in a conversation.

Barton wondered for a moment how incensed Fury would be if he went to the Tower first. He had no doubt that the calls were related, but was not sure how Fury would behave if he thought Clint was loyal to the Avengers before SHIELD. Ever since Steve had decided to stand behind Tony in establishing the Avengers as an independent entity separate from SHIELD several months ago, Clint had found himself caught between the two organizations on more than one occasion. Today, however, he was too tired to face Fury's wrath or worry about protecting Natasha. Besides, he was already at SHIELD HQ and Clint was nothing if not lazy when he wanted to be.

He texted Natasha a quick message. "Getting briefed on situation by Fury. Will stop by after". Hopefully the others wouldn't be too mad. They usually understood. He knew this time would be different when he entered the briefing room to find Tony already looking ready to pounce through the holographic screen, backed by the rest of the Avengers.

"...understand what this signal could mean. The fact that you're so eager to throw men at it makes me really wonder what's behind that eagerness, Nicky. Don't think that we've forgotten exactly what you were trying to harness the power of the Tesseract for the last time you had it under your control, or exactly how it blew up in your face. Or, really, the faces of dozens of your agents who happened to be caught in the middle of your bad decision, including Barton. If you think that we're going to stand by while you..."

It was then that Tony noticed Clint enter the room, which distracted the man with a natural ease that always disarmed anyone else trying to maintain a conversation with him. "... well hey there Barton," he said with a sudden smile, "we were just talking about you. Would you mind telling the good Director here exactly how much fun it was dancing like a puppet with the Tesseract pulling your strings, or how much you would really love to not go through it again because he never learned that those who don't pay attention to history are doomed to repeat it?"

"Excuse me?" said Clint, reaching the point of two word sentences. He could work his way up to more once he'd had a Red Bull or two.

Before Tony could continue to ramble at his usual breakneck pace, Natasha interrupted. "JARVIS picked up a signal that matched the signal given off by the Tesseract at 3:38 this morning and alerted us. The signal originated in the Arctic, not far from the site where Steve was discovered two years ago."

"Loki?" Clint asked, his heart rate accelerating quickly.

"We don't know. Thor is on Asgard and communication with him there has never been consistent. You know that." Natasha replied, radiating calm as though she knew how much he needed it.

"That's the problem, isn't it" replied Fury smugly. "You don't know."

"And you think you do?" Tony asked. And from the look on Fury's face, Clint was reminded of Tony's frequent assertion that the man was the bearer of secrets upon secrets.

"I have an idea. Not that I have any reason to share it with you, seeing as how you didn't see fit to share your information with me. Don't think that there won't be repercussions for the fact that you didn't contact us the moment you were alerted to the signal. Or that you refuse to send your data. You're just lucky that we've been keeping such a close eye on you."

"Right," said Tony, "a close eye. I suppose we should be thankful that it's just the one. Not that it matters. I'm having JARVIS have another look at the Tower's security protocols. That should be enough to turn us the small amount it will take to get us out of your line of vision." He gestured covering an eye and turning slightly to bring his insult home. Clint couldn't help but notice Maria Hill, standing as always by Fury's side, smirk a bit at that one.

"It doesn't matter. This signal is officially SHIELD business. The Avengers aren't needed. I'm sending a team out there to take a look. I'll even meet you half way. Barton will lead it. You trust him, don't you, Stark?"

Clint's heart felt like it would pound out of his chest. "Seriously?"

Tony looked as though he was about to tell Fury where he could shove his supposed compromise, but was cut off by the steely voice of Captain America. Not Steve Rogers. This was definitely the Captain speaking.

"That sounds fair. We'll stay out of it for now, provided that Barton remains in contact with both us and SHIELD about what he finds. Are you up to it, Clint?"

"Ummm..." Clint said, not up to it at all, but also hesitant to say no to Steve when the man's voice held so much confidence in him. "Yeah. I'll be alright."

"Good," said Steve. "Stay safe and stay in touch. This conversation is over, Director."

And that was it. The screen went dead before Clint had a chance to properly absorb what had just happened. Five hours later, having been shocked awake and thrown on a plane with a team of experienced SHIELD field agents following his every order, he would swear that he could feel the Tesseract. And he told himself that in the future, he wouldn't be so lazy, and would always go to the Tower first.

STARK TOWER, NYC - AUGUST 12, 2014 6:45AM

The moment that the SHIELD briefing room no longer appeared on the screen, Tony swung around to face Steve, a surprised look on his face. "So, what's the plan, Cap?"

"What plan?" asked Steve.

"The plan in which we all suit up and back Barton up while also getting under Fury's skin..." Tony said, impatiently.

"There is no plan, Tony. Fury's right. This is SHIELD business, for now. He offered to send a team to look into the signal. He agreed to Clint keeping in contact with us. Clint can handle himself" Steve told him.

This surprised Natasha. "Can he, Captain? You know what he went through the last time the Tesseract was on Earth. If Loki has returned, or if the Tesseract has made it's way here again, do you really think that Clint is the person best suited to handle that situation? Tony's right. We should be there to back him up."

At this, Steve got quiet and seemed to fold in on himself, which was concerning to the others. "Fine," he said. "The three of you can back him up if you want to. Fury won't be happy, but if you don't trust me to make that call then that's up to you. But I won't be able to be with you on this one."

After remaining silent and invisible throughout the conversation with Fury, Bruce chose this moment to remind the group of his presence, calm and concerned as it always was. "Are you alright, Steve? Is there something wrong?"

"Oh shit!" Tony interrupted. "The Arctic! The place where you experienced your own personal ice age!" You could always count on Bruce's quiet compassion to bring Tony's obnoxious obliviousness to other people's emotions into focus. "Well, there's definitely places in the world that you'd have to drag me kicking and screaming back to, so I can see where you're coming from on that one."

"It's not that" Steve said, embarassed that his team thought he was so weak as to be bothered by the ice after all this time. "I just... I trust that Clint can handle this. I do. And I also know that I'm in no state of mind to be of any use right now."

"Why is that, Steve?" asked Natasha.

"It's personal and I'd rather not talk about it." Steve replied in a tone that held no room for continued discussion. With that, he headed towards the elevator towards the gym, needing to rid himself of his frustration.

"Geez, what's got his star-spangled undies in a bunch?" Tony asked, irritated.

"Whatever it is, he's right. It's none of our business." Natasha reminded him.

"The hell it's not. He's living in my Tower. Everything that goes on in my Tower is my business..." Tony said.

"Tony..." Bruce tried to interrupt, the voice of reason, but Tony's mind was already off and running.

"... and JARVIS's business! JARVIS!" he called to his AI.

"Tony..." Bruce tried again.

"Yes, sir" came the omnipresent voice.

"Have you observed anything recently that could contribute to Captain Rogers lousy mood?" Tony asked.

"You realize that this isn't exactly making me feel welcome or at home here" Natasha pointed out, having only recently moved in. "Even SHIELD HQ at least allowed the illusion of privacy."

"Yeah, well, this will be a nice learning experience for our dear naive Captain," Tony said as he walked behind the penthouse bar to pour himself a drink to take the edge off. "Welcome to the 21st century - privacy no longer exists. If you're mad about it, vent on Twitter."

"Tony..." Bruce tried a third time. It seemed like these sorts of interactions were the story of Bruce's life now. Natasha just fumed quietly.

"Actually, sir," JARVIS broke the tension, as he was used to doing. "Master Rogers did receive a rather unusual visitor yesterday afternoon."

"Oh..." said Tony, interested.

"Yes, sir. It was a lawyer dealing with the estate of a Margaret Carter. Apparently, Master Rogers presence is requested in the United Kingdom to assist with the funeral and settling her estate."

"Wait," said Tony. "Peggy Carter died?"

"Who?" asked Bruce.

"Someone Steve knew during the war," Tony replied. "She was friends with my dad. I met her a couple of times growing up," he added as an explanation of how he knew who she was. "It's not surprising she passed away, more that she was still alive actually. And that Steve contacted her. I guess I just always figured Steve was the type to let sleeping dogs lie when it came to his past."

"Maybe not..." said Bruce.

"I'm gonna talk to him." Tony decided.

"What?" and "Are you crazy?" were the twin reactions he received to this from Natasha and Bruce. He was in the elevator, scotch still in hand, before they could stop him.

"This should be good." Bruce said, massaging the bridge of his nose with his fingers to keep the oncoming headache at bay for just a little while longer.

STARK TOWER, NYC - AUGUST 12, 2014 7:03AM

Having established with JARVIS that Steve was currently pounding his way through every specially reinforced punching bag in the Tower's elaborate gym, Tony was determined to confront the man about his attitude. Which was ironic, because usually he was the one being confronted for having the attitude problem. Usually, by Steve.

Tony supposed that he was really the last person to be giving Steve the "No man is an island, you don't have to do this alone" speech. However, after nearly dying of Palladium poisoning alone, and then trying (and ultimately failing) to salvage his relationship with Pepper while dealing with his post-Loki anxiety alone, he had realized the value in surrounding yourself with people who understood at least some small piece of what you were going through. And in this case, Tony was certain he did. Besides, it still irritated him that he had very nearly been denied the opportunity to be an Avenger because he supposedly didn't play well with others. Maybe it was true, but he could damn well try.

He was ambushed on his way to the gym, however, by an equally determined Pepper Potts. He wasn't surprised to see her up this early. Pepper always believed that the early bird got the worm. Unfortunately for her, this meant that usually Tony was going to bed as she was waking up.

Tony could tell, even though he knew that Pepper made sure no one else could, that she was stressed. Her heels clicked together at a pace that was just too quick, and her red hair was just slighly frayed in the front ends. Pepper always chewed her hair when she was stressed. It still made Tony's heart lurch a little to think that someone else might one day get to know her that well. That it was no longer his responsibility to ease her mind or soothe her stress.

"Miss Potts," Tony said without slowing down. Best to keep things professional, yet playful. It was familiar, and it made things less painful.

"Mr. Stark," Pepper said, playing along. "Do you have a minute?"

"For you," Tony said, "Always." And he meant it. He knew he always would.

Pepper smiled. Just slightly, but it was there. "I need you to sign the Hong Kong paperwork and sign off on the new Starkphone prototypes. I also need to know how you want me to handle the announcement about the Kiev factory."

"Yeah, no problem." He took the clipboard and pen in her hand from her. "Is that all? Usually, you have me sit behind a mountain of paperwork. One clipboard feels like getting off easy."

Pepper got quiet for a moment, observing him as he paused to lean the clipboard against a hallway wall and scrawl his signature on what she needed. "I know that we're broken up now..." she started, and Tony's body language stiffened. "But I want you to know that I didn't forget the date today. If you need me, I'm here."

"Here for what? Crap, would we have had an anniversary today? Is that what this is?" he said. He was put out because he genuinely couldn't remember. Despite his genius, she was always the brains of their relationship.

"Tony. It's August 12th," she said.

And that's when it hit him like a tidal wave. August 12th. The anniversary of his parents' death. Damn.

"Right. Yeah. No, I'm... I'm fine, Pep. Honestly, I didn't even remember until you just told me, so I'm obviously over it. Don't worry about it."

By now, they were at the gym. He could see Steve inside, the intensity radiating off of him in waves. "Here you go," he said, the conversation over. He handed her the clipboard and walked inside, ignoring her when she followed him in reminding him she still needed to discuss the Kiev factory with him.

"Hey, Cap," he yelled, heading towards the man, leaving Pepper waiting inside the door. "Am I gonna have to replace every punching bag in this place? Again?" Steve didn't stop and didn't respond. Tony should have taken this as a warning, but he didn't. He always got a little reckless when was thrown off-kilter. At least more than he usually was, which was saying something.

"You know you might have mentioned that the love of your life just died. We might've gone easier on you up there. News like that gives you an automatic free pass when it comes to the judgment of others." Damned Pepper, reminding him of the date. He couldn't help but remember how true his own words had been when applied to his actions following his parents' death all those years ago. And how much he regretted what he'd done with that freedom.

His own thoughts were shattered by the sound of a punching bag coming unhinged and flying across the gym. Which gave Steve no one to take his mood out on except Tony. "What the hell is wrong with you? I don't even want to know how you found out, but I told you that my business is personal. It doesn't concern you Stark!"

Bruce and Natasha now joined Pepper in the gym doorway, observing the scene.

"It damn well does concern me. Because we're all Avengers now, and you're supposed to be the guy we follow into battle. Which means we have to trust you and know what's going on in your head, Rogers."

"Steve..." Bruce started, trying to calm the situation without the Other Guy having to make an appearance. Bruce knew all too well from his own experiences that situations like this could escalate quickly. Normally, he would have avoided a tense situation like this if he could, but he'd spent so many years alone. He wouldn't allow the Avengers to fight or fall apart if he could help it.

"You don't have to know this, Tony," Steve yelled, angry. "You can trust me without me having to open up every part of myself to you. You may think you're entitled to anything you want, but you're not entitled to know me, Tony. You have to earn the right. And you have to give back in kind. And God knows, we don't know a damned thing about you besides what anybody could read about on a newsstand."

"I have to earn the right?" Tony yelled back at Steve, reacting without thinking in response to how much Steve's comments stung. "Excuse me, but you're living in my Tower aren't you? I'm funding this whole goddamned operation, aren't I? I'm out there every time the Avengers are needed, and I've always got your back, haven't I? So don't talk to me about what I've earned, Captain Hypocrite. You're not exactly taking the time to try to get to know me, either. What, are you afraid that I'll spoil the memory of my old man for you? That you'll learn something you don't want to?"

Whether the fight would have escalated past that or not would never be known for sure, because at that moment an electric blue light enveloped those in the room, and a persistent hum could be heard. Before JARVIS could even sound an alarm, Tony tasted the familiar coconut flavour he associated with his new arc reactor starting up for the first time, and all five occupants of the gym had what Natasha would describe later as an "out of body experience", and when they came crashing back to reality the stainless steel decor of the Tower's modern gym had been replaced by the dingy grey of an empty warehouse. They had been transported.

Steve collapsed to his knees in shock. Bruce, to his credit, quickly began his breathing exercises to prevent the Other Guy from being unleashed. Natasha could only nervously approach him to mutter soothing words and hope that he was successful. Pepper leaned against a wall and retched, before seeming to compose herself. Tony ran to her side, trembling, anxiety lacing it's way through his body.

Natasha gave everyone a moment to compose themselves before asking the obvious question. "Where are we?"

ARCTIC CIRCLE - AUGUST 12, 2014 3:30PM

Clint was not happy. He'd come all the way out to the middle of the Arctic and was freezing his butt off. He had his team scouring the area for hours for any sign of the Tesseract signal that had been registered there, but there was nothing. The mission was a bust.

He was about to order his men to begin the long trek back to the base camp they had set up when he felt a tremor at his feet. The ice began to crack underneath him, and the snow began to shift. Was it an avalanche? If not, it soon would be.

He yelled for his men to do what they could, to find some sort of cover or stick together as the earth shook. But before he could formulate any kind of organized response to the situation, he felt the ice underneath him give way and found himself moaning in pain a good 10-15 feet below where he had been a moment ago. He was sitting on, and surrounded on all sides by, a thick wall of ice. He could not move his left leg, and in the dim light of the Arctic moon he thought he could see bone sticking up through his clothing. He could definitely feel the blood pooling over his knee.

An agent who had fallen next to him, Clint recalled that his name was Sitorsky, stared in awe behind Clint. He appeared to be in better shape than Clint, although it was hard to tell. "Sir," he said, "look." Sitorsky grabbed his fallen flashlight and shone it behind Clint's head. When he turned, he could make out the distinct shape of a metal door with a pressure lock and the familiar logo of SHIELD.

"I don't remember anything in our briefing about there being a SHIELD base out here." Sitorsky said.

"That's because there isn't supposed to be one," said Clint. Nick Fury and his damned secrets.


	2. An Impossibly Possible Situation

ARCTIC CIRCLE - AUGUST 12, 2014 3:35PM

"Come on..." Clint said into his cell phone, Stark-issued and therefore able to get a signal even in the middle of the Arctic, "...pick up the damn phone, guys." The ringing was irritating him.

"Hello, you've reached Stark Tower. How may I assist you?" asked a familiar calm British voice. It still freaked Clint out that Tony had designed his AI to sound so human. After all, how could a computer have a regional accent? It weirded Clint out, which said something because Clint's life was already pretty weird.

"JARVIS, it's Clint Barton. I need to speak with one of the other Avengers right away."

"I'm afraid that the Avengers are unavailable at the moment, sir,"

"Unavailable?" That didn't sound right. He had assumed they'd be ready to back him up if he needed it. He'd called them before SHIELD this time, after all. He'd learned his lesson about going to Fury or SHIELD first. "What do you mean unavailable? There's no way you can't get ahold of Stark at least, JARVIS. Where's your boss?"

"I do not know, sir."

That definitely did not sound right. JARVIS knew everything. Or at least everything Tony did, which was essentially everything as far as Clint was concerned. "How can you not know, JARVIS? Did he go out? Where are the other Avengers?"

"As I stated, I do not know. According to my records, they were all assembled in the Tower's gym as of 7:03AM this morning, at which point they apparently vanished, sir."

Clint knew that it couldn't possibly be true, but he could swear that JARVIS sounded distressed. Not that he blamed him, since the information he provided could definitely be counted as distressing.

"Vanished? What the hell do you mean, vanished?" Next to him, Sitorksy was looking at him nervously, not sure what was going on and beginning to panic as the blood continued to flow out of Clint's broken leg and the mysterious door loomed in front of them like a bad omen. They still weren't sure what the situation was for the rest of the men they had been separated from.

"I do not know, sir," said JARVIS. Those words again. They were unnerving. "I did register a signal similar to that of the Tesseract at the moment they vanished, almost identical to the one registered in the Arctic earlier in the morning. However, my own attempts to reconcile the data available and form a hypothesis as to the Avengers whereabouts since that point have been unsuccessful."

"Thanks, JARVIS," Clint said, not sure what else to say or do. He wasn't sure why he was thanking the AI, but he supposed he wanted to make JARVIS feel better about his effort. Again, it weirded Clint out, but he had no choice but to go with it. He'd had no choice but to go with a lot of things that day.

Having hung up more confused than he started about what the hell was going on, Clint then dialed the only person he knew who seemed like he might be able to make sense of the situation. Without the Avengers to back him up, it wasn't like he had a choice.

"Barton! What the hell is going on out there? Agent Clayton called me to report that there was an earthquake in your vicinity. He said that most of the men made it out alright, but he was unable to determine the location of you or Sitorsky." Count on Nick Fury to berate you in a crisis. 'Typical,' thought Clint.

Well, if Fury was going to be blunt, so was Clint. "Do you want to explain to me why I'm looking at the entrance to a secret SHIELD base buried underneath the Arctic ice not far from where Steve Rogers' body was found two years ago? And then tell me it's a coincidence that I got sent out here to chase a Tesseract signal?"

There was silence on the line for a moment, and Clint was surprised. It seemed as though he had actually caught Fury off guard, which almost never happened. Finally, he received a calm response. "Do me a favour, and say hello to an old friend for me, Barton." The line clicked dead.

"That mother-" Clint exclaimed angrily, but was cut off by the grinding noise of the pressure lock on the door behind him unsealing. Sitorksy gripped his arm and reached for his weapon, concerned. Finally, the door opened and Clint could only make out a dark figure bathed in bright fluorescent light.

"Hey, Clint." Wait. He knew that voice. What the hell was going on?

ABANDONED WAREHOUSE - DATE AND TIME UNKNOWN

Tony was the first person to say anything after Natasha asked the question on all of their minds, his fight with Steve in the gym a distant memory. It was one thing for Steve and Tony to fight, but when push came to shove and Captain America and Iron Man were needed, personal grudges didn't matter. Tony was certain he could count on Steve to feel the same way.

"Well then," he said, hugging Pepper to him protectively and glad that she was letting him do so, "Are we just gonna stand around here all day, or are we expecting this beautiful dank warehouse we've found ourselves in to reveal all of it's secrets to us?"

Steve, Bruce and Natasha all moved to look around to examine their surroundings and see if there was an exit. "What happened to us? How did we get here?" Pepper asked, looking to Tony for the answer.

"The hell if I know," Tony replied. "Bruce, you're more used to waking up in strange places and not knowing how you got there than any of us. Any thoughts?"

Bruce shrugged off Tony's comment easily, examinining some of the crates to see if he could determine what was in them. "Don't look at me. That particular trip was nothing like the altered state I'm used to waking up from."

"I don't doubt it," said Tony. "Although it actually felt vaguely familiar to me." He didn't know what it meant that whatever happened to them had reminded him so much of the hum and glow of his arc reactor.

"Me too," said Steve, which surprised all of them. "I think it was the Tesseract."

"The Tesseract?" asked Natasha. "What's the Tesseract?" echoed Pepper.

"The Tesseract is the energy source that Loki was after when he invaded Earth two years ago," explained Bruce patiently.

"It was also used by the Red Skull in the war to make energy weapons. SHIELD ended up with it after it went down with me in the Arctic," Steve explained. "That hum... that glow... they reminded me of the feeling I got watching the Red Skull be sucked into a portal by it just before I took the Valkyrie down."

"That would make sense," Tony said. "We did pick up that signal out in the Arctic. Something funky is definitely going on involving the Tesseract. But we saw Thor and Loki take the thing back to Asgard. You'd think Thor would have mentioned if it had gone missing or been stolen."

"Who knows? I don't think we're going to get any answers in here though," Natasha said, motioning to a door she'd uncovered behind a stack of crates. It didn't appear to be locked. Steve stepped over to the door, his old-fashioned upbringing preventing him from allowing Natasha to be the one to go first in case they encountered trouble. He pushed the door open nervously. "Huh," he said. "It looks like New York. Not far from Manhattan. You can see it from here." The rest of the team cautiously followed him out into the sunlight. Sure enough, you could glimpse the Manhattan skyline peeking out above the buildings.

They were standing next to the warehouse now overlooking a vacant lot enclosed by fencing. They could definitely see a busy city street in front of the warehouse and the familiar brick townhouses and apartment buildings of a New York City neighborhood surrounding them. Garbage was littered around their feet, blown across the lot by wind and weather. Tony reached down out of curiousity to pick up a dirty newspaper drifting by.

"Guys..." he said to get their attention, "unless there's a homeless hoarder around here who has got a decent newspaper collection going on, I think we're in trouble." He held up the paper for them to see, his eyes wide in shock. It was a copy of the New York Times. "DAHMER DEATH COUNT RISES FROM INITIAL ESTIMATE" read the headline, with the date underneath July 31, 1991.

ABANDONED WAREHOUSE, NYC - JULY 31, 1991 10:17AM

"No," said Bruce calmly. "That can't be right. It's impossible."

"Are you sure about that?" asked Tony, a slight tremble beginning to spread throughout his body as the familiar rush of anxiety took him. "Because I actually did the math once. And impossible wasn't the conclusion I came to at the time."

"You did the math?" Bruce asked, intrigued. "As in, the time travel math? Since when is that your area of expertise?"

"I make it my business to make everything my area of expertise. I was 16, and bored, and to be honest pretty high. But still, I couldn't disprove that time travel was a possibility. And you know as well as I do that other scientists, who I assume weren't tripping balls at the time, such as Dr. Hawking (although isn't that a hilarious thought) attacked the same problem and came to the same conclusion I did. Not likely, but not impossible."

"Wait... what?" Steve asked. struggling to keep up. "You're not honestly going to tell me that this is 1991?"

"Says the guy who played Encino Man for almost 70 years? You should be the last person to find time travel hard to believe, Cap," Tony replied.

"Maybe so, but that was different. That was still..." Steve looked for the right word, "...linear, at least."

"It does seem a little unbelievable," Pepper said quietly, although she was used to the unbelievable when it came to Tony.

"Really, Pep?" said Tony, "then explain to me how my own glorious 96 story monument to myself has suddenly vanished from the skyline?"

Everyone craned their heads to look, and sure enough Stark Tower was nowhere to be seen amidst the other iconic buildings rising up in the distance.

"Good riddance," said Steve. Tony's anxiety took a backseat to his ego for a moment. "Hey!" he said in response, "Whatever happened to home sweet home?"

"I'm sorry, but can we please stay focused on the time travel being possible thing? Because it's kind of freaking me out. Not an Other Guy level of freakout, mind you, but still. Let's get serious, shall we?"said Bruce.

"Bruce is right. We need to focus. If we are in 1991, we need a plan," Natasha stated.

"Right," said Tony. "A plan sounds good. Also, rules. Rules are important."

"Rules?" asked Natasha.

"Definitely. Didn't you see Back to the Future? I don't know about you, but I'd like to keep existing and not return to any weird parallel universes where black is white and white is black, or suddenly Steve's Iron Man and I'm the Hulk or something."

"What?" said Steve, confused. "Why would that happen? That doesn't even make any sense."

"Time travel makes no sense," said Tony, the panic returning. "It shouldn't be possible, but it's not not possible, so it's possible and here we are! With the potential to destroy ourselves with the slightest step out of place, or create a universe-destroying paradox without even realizing it. It's awesome. And terrifying! Awesomely terrifying!" Tony wasn't going to let on to anyone, and only Pepper really knew anyway, but the fact that they'd time travelled to within a few weeks of his parents' deaths had been a part of Tony's thought process since the moment he'd seen the date on that newspaper. Panic was quickly blossoming into a panic attack.

Thankfully, Bruce was there. "Rules are good. Tony's right. If this is time travel, which seems to be our best assumption right now, we don't want to do anything that will make things worse. We need to be careful."

"Right," said Tony, calming down a bit. "Primarily, we need to ensure that we don't affect our own timelines. In Steve's case that's easy - we just need to not go to the Arctic and disrupt his icenap. But in the case of the rest of us, it's vital that we not interfere with anything that we already know happens. A paradox would not be a good thing. As in, I wasn't kidding about the universe-destroying thing. Avoiding our own timelines shouldn't be too hard. In my case, I was finishing up my third degree at MIT in 1991."

He left out the fact that his parents were residing within the very city they were in, in his childhood home, completely unaware that in 12 days they would die in a plane crash. He didn't feel the need to bring it up. Instead, he continued. "Pep, I know that you were going to school too, right?"

"Stanford," Pepper reminded him, knowing that he would never remember on his own.

"Right. Bruce?"

"I was working towards my Ph.D in Virginia," he said.

"Natasha?" Tony asked.

"I'd rather not get into the specifics, but I can tell you that I was nowhere near the United States." she said.

"Vague, but it will do," Tony replied. "So, a plan. Anyone got any ideas?"

Silence, for a moment. "I do, but you won't like it," said Natasha.

"At least suggest it, and we'll discuss it," said Steve.

"We need to find the Tesseract. We suspect that it brought us here, it may be the only thing that can get us home. We also know that in 1991 it would have been in the hands of the Strategic Scientific Reserve."

"The SSR?" asked Steve. "They were still around in 1991? I thought that they were only operational for the duration of the war?"

"The SSR continued to operate following the Second World War and through the Cold War. In fact, they were the organization that was eventually restructured to become SHIELD. They retrieved the Tesseract in 1948 as part of an expedition to find you, Cap. That's how it ended up in SHIELD's posession when Loki attacked. Their operations at this time were based in an old factory in Brooklyn. At the very least we should be able to get information about where the Tesseract is being kept there." There was a pause as everyone took in the information Natasha provided. "Let's just say that I like to know who I'm working for. I didn't get into bed with SHIELD without doing some research first. Plus, Clint tells me a lot."

Tony had a very bad feeling that he knew exactly who was responsible for retrieving the Tesseract, even if it had conspicuously been absent from the files Fury had provided him related to it. "Bad plan, Natasha. We can't go near the SSR without them recognizing Steve or giving away who we are, which would be a definite no-no."

"I can sit this one out, then," Steve said.

"Besides, who says we have to reveal ourselves? If you can hack SHIELD's 21st century security systems, I'm sure we can find a way into the SSR now," Natasha explained.

"It's too risky," Tony said.

"Why?" Natasha said. "Because you're worried that your father may still be involved with the Tesseract and the SSR and you're worried you'll be tempted to prevent his death?" Tony was shocked into silence at this. Steve and Bruce looked uncomfortable at the sudden intrusion into Tony's privacy. Pepper, to Tony's discomfort, looked at him with nothing buy pity and kindness in her eyes. "Like I said," said Natasha, "I like to know who I'm working for."

"Well I'll sit this one out too, then. It's not like I have my suit with me anyway, and covert operations are more your thing. But I still say it's too risky," Tony said.

"It would be risky not to. It doesn't strike me that we have a lot of other options." Natasha said. And nobody disagreed.


	3. Old Friends Who Aren't So Old

**RED HOOK, BROOKLYN, NYC - JULY 31, 1991 12:03PM**

A plan was quickly formulated. It turned out that mind-controlled or not, Clint had a big mouth when it came to SHIELD history and secrets, which when combined with the Black Widow's infamous powers of persuasion meant that Natasha was able to provide shockingly specific details about exactly where the SSR headquarters were located.

The problem of how to get to the necessary location was solved by Steve's habit of hoarding subway tokens. Tony couldn't help but make a crack about boy scouts and being prepared when he found that out. He and Steve may have put their fight aside temporarily, but Tony was never one to let things go completely, and Steve was just too easy a target sometimes.

Soon, the four Avengers plus Pepper were standing in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Red Hook, not far from what appeared to be a munitions factory that very prominently featured the Stark Industries logo on it's sign. Tony had a very, very bad feeling about this.

"Guys," he reminded them, "just remember to be careful. Anything you do could have lasting repercussions that could follow us back to our own timeline. If we get back to our own timeline at all."

"It'll be fine, Tony," Bruce said reassuringly. "We discussed this. Natasha is going to take out a couple of the guards, quietly, so that we can borrow their badges. Thankfully, technology wasn't at the point in 1991 where we have to worry about security measures beyond a couple of guards and an alarm system. Are you certain that the instructions you gave Pepper will enable her to hack the SSR computers for information in case Natasha isn't able to find what we need in the hard files?"

"Please," Tony said, "We're talking about a time when MS-DOS 5.0 and Linux were considered cutting edge. I could teach Steve how to hack them right now."

"Right then," said Bruce, "are you all right, Pepper?"

Pepper nodded, shyly. Tony hadn't exactly been thrilled that she was going with them and he wasn't, but he knew that going into a Stark Industries building wasn't exactly a good idea for him given the circumstances and Pepper's help was needed.

"Okay then," said Bruce. He was nervous, as he always was when he couldn't hide away in a lab and ensure the Other Guy didn't cause problems. "Let's go."

Tony and Steve could only watch as the others approached the back entrance to the factory.

* * *

**SSR SERVER ROOM, NYC - JULY 31, 1991 12:30PM**

Infiltrating the SSR's base had almost been too easy. The alarm system and security camera technology were laughable compared to what Natasha was used to dealing with and the guards, while well trained, had not put up much of a fight. Now, it was just a matter of the three of them blending in and finding the information they needed.

"Are you going to be okay in here?" Natasha asked Bruce, once they had located the room housing the base's computer server. She motioned to Pepper, indicating that it wasn't really Bruce she was concerned with.

"We'll be fine, Natasha. You hit the agents in here pretty hard. I don't think they're getting up anytime soon." He motioned to the two unconscious men who had been unfortunate enough to be working when they entered, sounding sympathetic towards them.

"Ten minutes, okay? Then, I'll be back to check on you." Natasha said, sneaking out the door to look for where the hard copy files were kept. Pepper moved towards one of the computers and began to hack into it according to the instructions Tony had provided.

"How are you holding up, Pepper?" asked Bruce.

"I'm doing about as alright as is possible, given the circumstances," she replied. "This is not what I was expecting when I woke up this morning."

"Yeah," said Bruce, giving her a small smile, "me neither."

The pair worked together in silence for several tense minutes. Suddenly, the two were startled by sound of intermittent static and near unintellible voices coming from the unconscious agents walkie-talkies. "there... are you... come in... alarm system down... come in?"

"What do we do?" asked Pepper. They began to hear the sound of footsteps running down the hallway outside the door. They were in trouble.

* * *

**SSR FILING ROOM, NYC - JULY 31, 1991 12:39PM**

Natasha moved swiftly, stepping over the bodies of the SSR agents unlucky enough to have been in her way in the filing room. She opened each of the large, deep drawers of files and skimmed quickly for any reference to the Tesseract. She was still having no luck and about to give up and return to Bruce and Pepper when she felt the unfortunately all too familiar feeling of a gun barrel press into the back of her neck. She froze.

"I don't know who the hell you are or what you're doing here, but whatever you're looking for better be worth your life," said the voice, in an instantly recognizable firm baritone. "Turn around, slowly."

Betraying none of her shock, Natasha did, only to be face to face with the seemingly immortal face of none other than Nick Fury. He looked identical to the man that they had spoken to just that morning, 23 years in the future. And not for the first time, Natasha wondered exactly how little she really knew about SHIELD history if even an agent as seasoned as Clint hadn't been able to fill her in on the most important details.

As Fury stared at her intently with his one good eye, two SSR agents shoved Bruce and Pepper at gunpoint into the room behind him.

"Now," Fury said, "explain yourself. It better be good."

* * *

**RED HOOK, BROOKLYN, NYC - JULY 31, 1991 12:20PM**

Once their teammates departed, Tony and Steve leaned against the wall of the alleyway they'd chosen to hide in tense silence. Without their teammates as a buffer, or the urgency of their situation as a distraction, the harsh words they exchanged earlier were harder to simply put aside.

Finally, Steve broke the quiet. "Tony," he said, and before he even began Tony wished he would just stop. This was not going to be a fun conversation.

"I am trying..." he paused, hesitant, "...very hard... to come to terms with the fact that your father lived a long life after my plane went down. That everyone did. You know that don't you?" Steve said.

"Obviously, Cap," replied Tony, very uncomfortable. His father was the last thing he wanted to be talking about at that moment. "You know we don't have to do this. I said some things, invaded your privacy, you said some things. I'm..." and he almost had to choke the words out "...sorry. I was a jack-ass. Can we just be done? It doesn't matter anymore."

"But it does," said Steve, unwilling to let it go. "It matters to me that you know that. Your father was a good man, but I can't expect that the version of him that I knew compares to the version that you grew up with. I never asked about him because I was trying to respect your privacy. Which is all I was asking for today."

"That's fair," said Tony. "But really, can we not talk about this right now?"

The tense silence returned.

Several minutes later, it was broken not by either of the men in the alley, but by an exclamation from nearby.

"Oh my God." The pair turned, and Tony went pale as though he'd just seen a ghost. Because he sort of had. There, standing a few feet from them in the street facing the alley, was none other than the subject of their conversation, Tony's father, looking just as he remembered him.

"Steve?" Howard asked. He laughed to himself in shock. "Oh my God, Steve!"

Steve wasn't sure what to do or say. They were in big trouble.

Howard nearly doubled over with joy, and then pulled himself back up to look at the heavens in amazement. "I did it!" he exclaimed. "Christ, I actually did it! I don't believe it!" He stumbled over awkwardly and wrapped his arms around Steve, who wasn't sure what to do other than stand there awkwardly. "Howard..." Steve said in shock, hugging the man back slightly, but before he could continue, he was interrupted.

"You did it?" Tony asked, coming to his senses and realizing that the man's reaction to seeing Steve was not what he would have expected. "What did you do?"  
Howard looked up at him from over Steve's shoulder as though he only just noticed he was there. "Uh..."

"What. Did. You. Do?" Tony asked.

* * *

**ARCTIC CIRCLE - JULY 31, 1991 10:17AM**

"I think we've got something!" Agent Karlsonn exclaimed excitedly, stumbling as he attempted to run through the arctic snow towards his colleagues. He had to yell to be heard over the loud, persistent whine of the drill as it dug deeper and deeper into the ice.

The signals he was receiving on his equipment were all over the place. Strangely, they matched those of the cube that had been retrieved not far from their vicinity years earlier. That was a good sign. It was possibly an indication that they were near the very wreckage they had been searching for. Were they finally nearing their goal after all these years? The thought sent shivers of excitement rather than cold through Karlsonn's body.

Suddenly, a blue flash lit up the sky and the earth began to quake beneath them. He could hear the sounds of agents yelling around him, but he was in too much shock to run for cover. It was all happening so fast. he dropped his flashlight and it went out, plunging him into darkness. He tried to continue towards where he knew the others were, but he fell backwards, landing on his back in the snow.

After a moment, the shaking stopped. As Karlsonn squinted in the darkness to see and began to sit up, a figure appeared in front of him. "What happened?" he reached over and patted him hands in the snow trying to find his fallen flashlight.

"Something miraculous happened," a voice said. The accent was German, thick too. Funny, Karlsonn didn't recall any Germans on their team for this expedition.

"Is everyone alright?" Karlsonn asked.

Karlsonn finally found the flashlight and flicked it on, only to gasp in horror as the beam found the face of the figure in front of him. It was red, as though it had been burned deeply, and the eyes glinted with madness. It could only be one person, Karlsonn knew, but it was impossible. Wasn't it?

"For now," said the Red Skull answering the man's question. "but they won't be when I finish with them." With that, Karlsonn felt a blow to the back of the head, and blissfully lost consciousness.


	4. Time Travel is Not a Precise Science

**RED HOOK, BROOKLYN, NYC - JULY 31, 1991 12:25PM**

Tony's question hung in the air, tense and unanswered. Howard, however, much like his son was an expert at diffusing tension with an easy charm.  
"Well, hello there," he said, avoiding the question. "Howard Stark, I'm an old friend of Steve's." He held out his hand over Steve's shoulder, expecting a handshake. Tony just sighed and crossed his arms.

"I know exactly who you are. Answer the goddamned question," he said, annoyed.

Steve decided this would be a good time to step in. "Howard!" he said. "It's good to see you. You look..."

"Like an old man," Howard said, stepping back from his hug finally. "And you haven't aged a day." He looked in awe as he stared at his old friend. "You look just like I remember you. I can't believe it."

Steve allowed himself a small smile, but had a bad feeling about Howard's presence. His old friend was nothing if not a genius, but much like his son it often got him into trouble. At the very least, he would be difficult to lie to.

"Who's your friend?" Howard asked.

Tony's eyes went wide at the question and Steve knew that he needed to come up with something quickly. "This is Mr... umm..."

"... Hammer," Tony filled in, pulling the name randomly from his mind. "Justin Hammer. Now what exactly did you do? Because you don't seem that surprised to see your old friend, looking exactly as you left him almost 50 years ago, in a random alleyway."

"Well, Mr. Hammer, if that is your real name, why don't you tell me where you came from and how Steve got here first? Because I have a feeling the two are related, but I'd hate to risk giving out important state secrets to a complete stranger. Could get me into trouble, you see."

"Where do you think we came from?" Tony asked. When you don't have an answer to a question, answer it with another question. Tony had been dodging questions from reporters since learning to talk, so he wasn't worried about his father getting anything out of him he didn't want him to.

"We, as in you and Steve. You came from the same place? I didn't think anyone else was on that plane when it went down." Howard replied. Tony realized that maybe he and his father were evenly matched when it came to avoiding conversations they didn't want to have.

"The plane?" Steve asked. "You think I was on the plane before I ended up here? Howard, what do you think happened to bring me here? Please, it's important. You can trust... Justin. We won't tell anyone. But if you had anything to do with this, we need to know."

"I'll tell you, Steve, I will. But first, you have to tell me something. Where were you before you ended up in this alley? What do you know about how you got here?" Howard replied.  
Tony sighed. They weren't getting anywhere.

"You know what," Howard said. "We shouldn't do this here. There's a coffee shop around the corner. You two want something to drink? Maybe some food? I'm supposed to meet someone, but they can definitely wait. We obviously need to talk. What do you say?"

"Sounds good. T... Justin? Is that alright with you?" asked Steve, almost forgetting that he couldn't use Tony's real name. The name was a lie, but the concern in his voice was genuine.

Tony was conflicted. He was trying not to stare at his father in front of him, his silver hair and sly grin looking exactly as they had the last time he had seen him, more than 20 years earlier. He was surprised that he didn't feel at all as though he might have thought in this situation. On the one hand, it was all he could do not to simply turn around and run. However, there was a surprising, overwhelming part of him that he hated that wanted nothing more than to cling onto the man for dear life like a small child and never let him go. It terrified him.

"Sure. Why not?" he replied, trying to betray as little of the churning emotions happening inside his mind as possible. The moment the words left his mouth, he knew that he would regret them. But he followed the pair as they left the alley anyway.

* * *

**MORNING JOE COFFEE SHOP, BROOKLYN, NYC - JULY 31, 1991 12:35PM**

It was awkward, the three of them crammed around a table built for two, with an extra chair pulled over from a neighboring table. Howard could not help but stare at Steve in amazement, and Tony could not help but stare at Howard even though he was trying not to.

Howard stared down at his coffee as though it bored him. "You guys don't mind if I make this coffee a little more interesting, do you? Not that coffee's not one of Earth's greatest miracles on it's own, but I really need something to take the edge off right now." And with that, he discretely pulled a flask from his jacket pocket and emptied some of it's contents into his cup. He shook the flask a little to indicate he was willing to share. Tony pushed his cup over and Howard topped it up.

"I can't get drunk, remember?" Steve said.

"Right, yeah," Howard said. "I forgot about that. Sucks to be you." He took a drink from his coffee and immediately seemed to relax.

"What are we doing here?" Tony asked.

"I don't know," said Howard. "What are you doing here? I have a good idea of what Steve is doing here. I've been working on a little project, one that I honestly didn't expect to work."

"What do you mean?" asked Steve.

"You tried to pull Steve off of that plane and into the future using the energy of the Tesseract. Is that it?" Tony said, having put the pieces together almost from the moment his father had hugged Steve in the alley.

"Tried?" said Howard. "He's sitting right here in front of me isn't he? That's pretty good evidence that it did work! It's you I'm not sure about. Where did you come from?"

"Not 1945. Your aim was a little off. There's a reason you don't go messing with strange technologies from alien planets that you don't understand. Or time travel. Even I'm not that reckless."

"Wait, I don't understand. Steve, you're here. I pulled you off of that plane, you're here!" Howard said, struggling to understand what Tony was trying to tell him.

"You're right, Howard. But my friend is also right. Neither of us was in 1945 when we ended up here." Steve answered.

"How could you not have been in 1945?" Howard asked. "I don't understand."

"What exactly have you been working on?" asked Tony.

Howard was hesitant. "It's alright, Howard. Like I said, you can trust him," Steve reassured.

"I've been working on experiments with the Tesseract related to tapping into it's unique energy," Howard explained. "I realized that the type of radiation being emitted from the Tesseract left a trace, an imprint of sorts on whatever it touched while active. I tried to tap into the Tesseract's energy to pull you here from the moment that it's power last surged, the moments right before your plane went down. There's no other point at which pulling you from the timeline would have been possible. Not without there being some pretty clear evidence that something went wrong."

"Yeah, evidence as in the potential destruction of the universe. As in the creation of an impossible paradox that could potentially rip apart the whole of space-time. You wanted to see your old pal again so much that you'd risk that?" Tony asked, upset at his father's recklessness.

"Howard," Steve said, looking horrified at the thought. "He has a point. What were you thinking?"

"It was a calculated risk. I'm not insane. I had controls in place." Howard defended himself. "We've been looking for the Valkyrie for almost fifty years! Do you have any idea how many expeditions I've sent out to the Arctic? Do you know how disappointing it's been, every time one of them came back with nothing except the odd piece of the Valkyrie. Steve, I don't know if you know this or not, but the serum has some very particular side effects when it comes to certain things, and if you'd gone down in that ice, there was a chance that you were still alive down there, frozen. How could I live with that? So, after the most recent expedition came back with no news, I started to think about why. And I started to explore the possibility that maybe you hadn't actually gone down with the Valkyrie at all. And the time travel theory fit. I mean, if I pulled you off of that plane at the last minute and you ended up here, then of course we would have never found your body! There'd be no paradox, because we've gone this entire time thinking you were still down there! It made sense! And it worked! You're here in front of me, after all these years. It's just surreal, isn't it? You have no idea what it's like to be staring at someone who you haven't seen for so many years and have them look just as you remember them. I did that! I saved you!"

"Yeah, you saved him alright," Tony said, "saved him from a comfortable life in the year 2014 after he was found and unfrozen. Saved him from a life that you didn't get to be a part of, and risked the whole universe in the process, you selfish asshole!"

The minute Tony said the words he knew that he'd said too much. But it was too late. Steve stared at him, disappointed. Howard just sat back in his chair, shocked.

"2014?" he asked. "You were in the year 2014? Both of you?"

"And a few other friends of ours," Tony said. "Like I said, you've got some aim."

"Jesus," Howard said, and took another gulp of his coffee.

"Speaking of our friends..." said Steve, realizing the time. Natasha and the others should have returned to the alley by now and could be looking for them. Through the coffee shop window, Steve could see additional cars and security pulling up to the munitions factory.

"Shit," said Tony.


	5. The More You Don't Know

**SSR BRIEFING ROOM, NYC - JULY 31, 1991 12:45PM**

Natasha stepped into the room carefully, the gun jammed in her back discouraging her from any sudden moves, especially with Bruce and Pepper also being held at gunpoint behind her. She could hear Bruce's heavy breathing as he worked to remain calm, and could only hope that he was successful. This situation was not exactly good for his "condition" as he liked to put it, and Natasha was certain that having the Hulk let loose on 1991 Brooklyn would be very, very bad for the space-time continuum. She couldn't begin to understand how bad, that was Tony and Bruce's territory. But she knew that it wasn't something she wanted to learn firsthand.

Fury's initial demand to explain had been ignored. Natasha wasn't going to tell him anything, and she knew that she could count on Bruce to do the same. Pepper made her nervous. The woman wasn't trained or prepared for this kind of situation, something that Natasha had tried to warn Tony about more than once. But, Tony wanted to protect her and love made people stupid, a fact which Natasha knew too well from from personal experience.

"Have a seat," said Fury, shoving her into a chair around the briefing room table so that she faced him. Bruce and Pepper were also made to sit, the guns still trained on them. Fury and the SSR agents remained standing. It was an obvious tactic designed to make them sweat.

"Now," said Fury, still standing, "who are you?"

"We can't tell you that," said Natasha.

Fury motioned to one of the agents who grabbed Bruce from behind and yanked his arm back hard behind him, slamming his head into the table. He yelped in pain, and his skin started to take on an olive tint. Pepper gasped, terrified. "Please, don't do this!" Bruce pleaded, scared of was so close to happening. He tried desperately to maintain his breathing and calm down. Natasha was surprised that he'd managed so well so far, but knew that as impressive as his control was, even he had limits. Things were escalating quickly.

"Please, we're not your enemies," Natasha said. "You need to believe me, for your own safety."

Fury stared down at her for a tense moment, and it seemed that he was considering her words carefully. Before he could make a decision, however, they were interrupted by the bang of the door being flung open. Howard Stark chose that moment to waltz in the door like he owned the place. Which he sort of did, a fact which was a constant irritation to Fury, especially in moments like this one.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! What is this? Geez, Nick, you decided to throw a party and you forgot to invite me? I'm insulted," said Howard.

Fury could only roll his eyes at how typical this was. Stark, showing up unannounced and half in the bag. Again. "Stark," he yelled, and Natasha and Pepper's eyebrows went up. "What the hell are you doing here? It's not a good time."

"Well, I was coming to discuss the plans for the new aircraft carrier you wanted me to have a look at, but when I heard you were entertaining a group of time travellers, I decided I didn't want to be left out of the fun," Howard replied. Natasha swallowed. This was not good.

"Time travellers?" said Fury, not amused.

"Yep. From the year 2014 apparently. Although some of them got there by way of 1945," Howard explained. Steve and Tony chose this moment to enter the room.

All animosity towards their unexpected intruders was forgotten temporarily, as every agent in the room's eyes turned towards the long since assumed dead Captain America, standing in front of them looking as though he just jumped clean off the pages of his comics. Even Fury looked stunned.

"Captain Rogers?" Fury asked.

"Yes, sir," said Steve in response. "Now, if you could kindly lower your guns and release my friends, I'd appreciate it." The SSR agents obeyed without question.

"Hi guys," said a now calmed down Bruce, "Do you wanna fill us in here? Because I thought we agreed that we weren't going to do this."

"2014?" said Fury.

"Yep, that's right," said Tony. "We're from the future. And that is all we're going to tell you about it."

Fury seemed torn between whether to laugh in their faces or take them seriously. But the presence of Steve seemed to decide for him for the time being. He motioned for the other agents in the room to leave, and they did.

"Alright then," he said. "I won't ask you any questions about where you're from, but you're sure as hell going to have a seat and tell me how you got here. You too, Howard." He took a seat himself as a gesture of goodwill, but he still looked unsure. The others sat down, and they were silent for a moment.

Natasha and Bruce looked at Tony and Steve with hesitation written on their faces.

"Right then," said Steve. "As Howard said, we're from the year 2014. We got pulled here by the energy of the Tesseract. Howard was apparently working with it to pull me here from the moment my plane went down. Something about radiation..." he said, unsure, "anyway, instead of pulling me from that moment, he pulled me from the future where I had already been unfrozen. Along with some others who were in the room with me at the time."

"You said they were your friends?" Fury asked, looking at Natasha as he asked the question.

"They are," said Steve. "This is Natasha, Bruce and Pepper," he pointed and introduced. "And this is Justin Hammer." He emphasized the last name so that Natasha, Bruce and Pepper would understand and follow his lead. Pepper smirked slightly at Tony's choice of alias.

"That's all we can tell you," interrupted Tony. "Nothing else. I mean that. You guys deal with all kinds of crazy here - cosmic cubes, aliens, advanced technology, magic. So you must at least have some idea that time travel is a very particular brand of insanity. If we tell you something that you're not supposed to know, affect anything that we're not supposed to affect, we could cause paradoxical destruction. I'm talking full scale annihalation of the whole of space-time. Hell, even you seeing us right now is bound to cause problems. This could really be an issue, unless we are very, very careful. So, you kinda need to work with us here, Nicky."

"Excuse me?" asked Fury, raising an eyebrow. Nobody talked to him like that, not even Stark, and nobody called him Nicky. Who did this guy think he was?

"What I think my friend here is trying to say," Howard interrupted, sensing the tension, "is that we really don't have a choice about this. I brought them here. I need to get them back to their own time. And the SSR needs to help me do it."

"We caught your friends breaking into the base. Why?" Fury asked.

"We needed information," replied Natasha, "about the location of the Tesseract. It brought us here, it stands to reason it could help us get home. We didn't want to alert you to our presence unless we had to."

"How the hell do we even know you're telling the truth? How do we know you're even really Steve Rogers?" asked Fury.

"Test me if you want," said Steve immediately. "I don't mind. It's not like I haven't been poked and prodded enough in my lifetime. If you need proof that I am who I say I am, well I have no problem providing it to you. The rest you'll just have to take my word for. I think I've earned that."

Fury couldn't say anything to that. The man in front of him was an American hero. If the tests proved he was who he said he was, he'd have no choice but to trust him. It didn't mean he'd have to like it, though.

"Fine. If you'll allow us to verify your identity, Captain, we'll work with you. Or rather, Stark will. This isn't really the SSR's problem."

"We do need access to the Tesseract though," said Bruce.

"Well then, you'll get it. But it's not safe for us to bring it here. The energy and radiation it gives off are still not fully understood, and I won't jeopardize my people," Fury replied.

"So where is it then?" asked Tony, "Presumably, you've got in, what, an underground bunker? Oceanic base? We've got no problem going where the Tesseract is."

"Good. It's at Stark's house," said Fury, and Tony's jaw dropped.

"My... Stark's house? As in, his mansion here, in New York? That's nuts!" Tony exclaimed. "Are you nuts?" he asked his father. "In your home? He doesn't trust the thing around his people, and you're keeping it where your family lives? You're crazier than I thought. Who are you?" Tony rambled. He thought he'd known his father. Even if the man hadn't necessarily been the chattiest with him personally growing up, he thought he'd known the things that were going on with him, thought he'd heard every story. He'd read every interview, every press article, every mediocre biography since his father's death (and even before). He'd even learned a lot about the man from Obadiah. The SHIELD files Fury had provided him had been startling and perception altering, but this... this was something else. The man had kept a powerful alien artefact mere feet from the place where Tony slept growing up. He knew that house, he had thought inside and out, and he had never even known his father had a workshop there.

For the first time Tony realized that there was a possibility that the things Fury had shared with Stark about his father had been the tip of the iceberg.

"I'm the guy who's going to get you back to 2014," Howard said, "and I guess this means you're coming home with me."


End file.
